


A Moment Before the Climax

by Krizlynn



Category: Gintama
Genre: Fluff, Gintok is whipped, Gintoki go vroom vroom on Zamboni, Hijikata is a figure skater, Hijikata is uhm...flexible, M/M, Romance, Skating, Slow Burn, whipping cream whipped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26927005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krizlynn/pseuds/Krizlynn
Summary: "So his name is Hijikata.""He's beautiful, isn't he?""Yeah. And not only that."-Hijikata Toshirou is an aspiring pro figure skater in a small town, having quite the reputation after winning a few country-wide competitions.Sakata Gintoki is the new Zamboni guy at their local ice rink, and it's safe to say that he's never been quite as enamoured with someone like he is with Hijikata.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	1. The City Still Sleeps When He Wakes

**Author's Note:**

> No, this is not Yuri on Ice. I will punch you before you can say that.
> 
> I am just very obsessed with figure skating as of late, and this idea was too cute to not write. So here it is! Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.
> 
> The chapters will usually be very short, episodic-like, and without huge flow from scene to scene. I am really just indulging in skating and Ginhiji :)

Gintoki decides that waking up early in the morning isn't so bad. 

At his previous job a town over, he'd worked the graveyard shift, sleeping in the hours of day and waking up when others were going to bed. He enjoyed life like that, avoiding the irritating hustle and bustle of day-life and getting time to (mostly) himself in the factory. It also allowed him to slack off more, because night time supervisors were either as tired as one would expect, or just understood that graveyard shifts sapped the life out of most. He'd always thought that he'd hate going back to a normal person's routine, but he actually finds that waking up in the morning isn't so bad. 

It's 6 a.m., and the noise of leaves crunching under his boots is the only thing he can hear right now. There's not another soul around, and it could be because the ice rink is located at an emptier part of the already empty town, or because the town only functions past 7 a.m. Whatever it is, he's grateful for it. 

Gintoki pulls out the keys he'd received yesterday, walking up to the door labelled "employees only" and pushing the key right in. Otose, the one who owns the rink and had hired him, had told him that he'd be opening and closing. It sounds insane but is really not. After all, the rink is only open 8 hours a day, either from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. He also knew Otose from years back when he used to live there in his early twenties, and she'd basically been his caretaker. Even if the hours turned out to be insane, he wouldn't mind so much. 

He walks inside to see the dim skating rink, the smell of the place hitting his face. He doesn't know how to describe the scent really, but if he has to he would say it's the embodiment of the word "cold". As he walks over to what he assumes are the lights switches, he looks around, familiarizing himself with the place he'd be working in for the next year or so. He then flicks on some switches randomly, hoping that he doesn't somehow explode the place on his first day. Thankfully, all that happens is the main lights turning on over the rink, the bleachers remaining blanketed by shadows. 

If he remembers correctly, the first thing he should do is open up the front doors and the office at the front. He knows there are part-time kids working at the front to invite people in and take their money and membership or whatever they have there. Otose had said that their names were Kagura and Shinpachi, and Gintoki vaguely remembers those names to belong to brats from when he used to live here. At that time, however, they were seriously just little kids. It's almost surreal to think of them having actual part-time jobs now. 

He's getting old. Gintoki sighs, recognizing that his 29th birthday is creeping up to him, in a bit less than a month. Why the hell did people age? He'd never understand.

Gintoki flicks on the lights at the front, unlocking the door to the office and then making his way to the front doors. He pushes on them, putting the little metal stick inside to unlock it, when a figure suddenly slips past him. All Gintoki can see is a head of black, and what he thinks is a man pulls a luggage behind him without sparing Gintoki another glance. 

He connects two and two (well, he "connects") and figures that it must be Shinpachi, here to start his day. 

"Holy crap," Gintoki speaks up, "You've gotten so tall, four-eyes!" He catches up easily, swinging an arm around his shoulder. "You remember me, right? 'Gin-cha—'"

The person now staring back at him isn't Shinpachi. _That_ much, he can tell. He's neither four-eyed nor a kid, and he definitely doesn't remember "Gin-chan". 

The man's eyes are such a striking blue that Gintoki stands there for a solid ten seconds, just staring at the pair accompanied by pale skin and pink lips. He's taken aback, noting that the guy could be any age at all and he'd believe it. He seems mature in the way that he stares at Gintoki, but his complexion is just far too nice to be someone older than 19.

When it's obvious that Gintoki won't be the one to step away, the mysterious person brushes his arm off his shoulder, fixing his coat awkwardly afterwards. 

"...Wrong person," he says, and his voice is surprisingly deep for his appearance. Another thing that just confuses the hell out of Gintoki.

Gintoki clears his throat, deciding that he best get over his stupor lest he wants to look like a complete idiot. "Yeah, um. Sorry. You here to skate?" 

He nods, and goddammit, GIntoki's now leaning more to the side of the guy being younger than him. 

"I have a membership," he mumbles, pulling out a card. 

Gintoki has no fucking idea what he's doing, and it's very obvious. 

"You know what, don't bother," Gintoki says after a moment, "Just showing me your card is enough. Nothing is set up right now and I don't even know what I'm doing, so just go on ahead." 

The newcomer hesitates, but then he goes on ahead after saying a brief thanks, passing the doors that lead to the rink. There's something about him—maybe it's the way he walks; the way he carries himself with a grace that's only apparent when examined for a moment after interest. _Are all skaters like that?_ Gintoki wonders, entering the little front office to fiddle around a bit.

It's at that moment that the front doors open again and _there's_ the four-eyed virgin he was expecting. 

"Shinpachi, thank god," he says, leaning out of the ticket window, "Get this whole thing started."

"What the... _Gintoki_?!"


	2. The Heart Palpitates When It's Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one normal glides across the ice like that.

Operating a Zamboni isn't as complicated as Gintoki expected. 

It's like driving a fat car around, except a lot slower, and he has to think about whatever conditioner and _squeegees_ are. He's going by the manual here, and even though it's his first time it's not so bad. Otose's friend (who was the previous Zamboni guy) had given him a crash course the other day, telling him how much ice he needed to cut and what it actually means to resurface the ice. Gintoki obviously won't know as much as an actual veteran Zamboni dude, but he thinks that he's pretty good. In fact, he believes that no one would be able to even tell that it was his first time. He's really living up to his ice technician name. 

After he's done scraping the extra ice bits away from the rink, he closes the Zamboni gate and looks out onto the empty rink, spotting movement across from him. It's the boy—the man-boy, from earlier, stretching, leg propped up on the banister as he reaches for his toes. It's crazy how he just... _folds_ , easily entwining his hands around the skates he must've put on while Gintoki was driving around. He bends further, tilting his head to get a deeper stretch, and the two of them make eye contact. 

Gintoki doesn't really know what to do, act like he wasn't caught completely staring? Own up to it? Pretend that he didn't notice he was staring that hard? He decides to make it not a big deal, tilting his own head in a question-like way. The other just turns his head so that he's not facing Gintoki anymore, continuing with what was obviously his routine. 

So Gintoki does the same, going around, doing everything that he needed to actually complete opening. The washrooms are typical for a skating rink, and the changing rooms are the same. Turn on the lights here, replace the toilet paper there. The next time he comes out it's a minute past seven, and the rink is already being used. He was told that he'd be the one signalling for people to get on and off the ice, but he's not such a stickler that he'll yell at someone or even get annoyed if someone's on there without his explicit "permission". He also thinks that the guy (yeah, _the_ guy) is more of a pro at everything skating-related than he is. 

And it's, _wow_ , _honestly_. Gintoki already had his suspicions of whether or not the other was a figure skater after seeing the little stretching routine he had, but now he's 100% sure that's the case. No one normal glides across the ice like that, as if they're flying over the surface instead of precariously balancing on two metal blades. There's no hesitation in the movement, and Gintoki watches as he skates around the ice a couple of rounds, sometimes turning to—just as perfectly—skate backwards. His movements are in time with the music Shinpachi's playing on the speakers (some month-old pop on the brighter side) and Gintoki wonders what it'll be like when it's actually music that he picked.

Gintoki's about to go on with his day again, this time with his thoughts a little more occupied by the skater, when said skater just... _jumps_. It's so sudden that Gintoki's heart leaps into his throat, watching in awe as he twirls in the air once and somehow lands the jump on one leg, smoothly transitioning back into regular skating. He has to blink before he can think normally again, questioning when the hell skating was something like _that_. 

If it wasn't obvious, Gintoki has never seen figure skating in his life. He's more of a summer sports kind of guy, only chiming in for the _Olympics_ when it's for some snowboarding trick that was particularly cool. He's seen a hockey match or two, but the only program of figure skating he'd seen was way back then, and he'd watched only a couple of seconds before moving on. 

He questions whether he's been wasting his time _not_ watching the Olympic figure skating, but then he also questions if he would feel this stricken by any other skater... It's probably just because he saw it happen right in front of him, he reasons. 

The next hour, he's away from the rink, catching up with Shinpachi, getting general maintenance completed, and watching as only a couple more people enter the building. It's not surprising; considering how small the town is and how it was barely the season for skating. He expects more people to be here after another two months or so. 

He then reaches the point that he expects he'll reach many times in the future—a time where he has nothing to do but sit around and either wait for something to break, or until the scheduled times to Zamboni the ice again. The job is incredibly low-demanding, and Gintoki knows it's primarily because they're a small town. Barely any hockey games occur here, let alone lessons. It's a miracle that they have an ice rink in the first place, but it's probably Otose's doing behind the scenes. She'd probably be the only one capable of keeping it up, what with her relations with the town mayor and other important residents. _Why_ , Gintoki wasn't so sure. It seems expensive to upkeep. 

He wanders back to the rink and climbs the bleachers, plopping down onto the highest shadowed bench and kicking back to watch the rink absent-mindedly. There's a parent with their kid, waddling around on one-third of the rink, and then there's the figure skater, gliding over the ice in patterns that seem like practice. Gintoki adjusts to lean forward, propping his arm up on his leg to hold his chin in his palm as he watches with a nearly empty mind. 

The guy repeats the earlier jump a few times, the one that makes him seem as if he's floating in the air for a second, before he seems to gear himself up for something else. Gintoki has no idea what type of jumps there are in skating and he doubts he'll ever really understand, but he can see that this next one is a step-up from the previous. It's because he seemingly puts more power into the jump and spins twice in the air, again landing on one foot perfectly. He does that same jump a few times—maybe changing which foot he lands on, the angle, _whatever_ , Gintoki isn't the right person to describe someone's skating—before, and quite abruptly, he kicks off and Gintoki swears he sees him spin twice as fast. 

Gintoki has to see it a few more times (which he does, because like the others this jump is repeated a few times) to confirm that he's now turning three times. On certain ones where the lead-up is different, he flubs the landing, staggering afterwards or having to touch the ice with his hand to get himself back up.

The first time he lands with a fall, Gintoki flinches in his seat, almost wanting to go down there and check if he'll be okay. Instead, all Gintoki does is watch as the skater gets up and does the same, over and over again, falling multiple times, sometimes worse than others, sometimes not.

 _It's insane_ , Gintoki thinks as he watches the other brush snow off his pants the umpteenth time, shaking out his arms and taking a deep breath. Even from there Gintoki can see the concentrated expression on his face. He starts to find himself admiring the guy for taking this much ass-to-ice and standing back up again.

He doesn't notice how much time passes with him just watching, until the parent and their kid steps off the ice, clearly having gotten their fill of skating. 

Once that happens, he sees the skater follow suite a minute later, putting on skate guards to walk to the entrance. He disappears behind the doors and Gintoki can see through the window that he's talking to Shinpachi, handing over his phone after a few moments. He's walking back after that, and then he's skating to the middle of the rink, scraping the blades once or twice over the ice. His arms raise to form a big thumbs up in the direction of the indoor windows, and Gintoki watches as Shinpachi nods back. 

Silence and stillness follow, and then the figure on the ice takes a deep breath. A hollow piano melody starts playing throughout the rink—a stark difference to the flashy pop songs from earlier—and then the Zamboni man realizes that, _oh_ , he'll get to see the other skate to something he's worked on. 

He’s only mildly interested at first— _curious_ , one would say, questioning if he lands all his jumps on time or if he sings along or something. There’s nothing to prepare the permhead for what happens next, and if he has to admit it someday, he’d say that this is probably the first time he’s felt this way.

He can’t explain it in words, because it doesn’t make sense.

The next time the figure skater looks up, Gintoki’s just taken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> frick frick frick this is just so fun and easy to write
> 
> hhhhhh I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am ahahaha
> 
> I know it's quite wordy sometimes and a lil too descriptive but... oh well? All worth it for the skater and Zamboni man aghhh
> 
> Thanks for all the nice comments and support, love u all


	3. Hollow Melodies That Hold More Than Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gintoki gets a name to that face and figures out that he's a troublesome mayora.

He looks like he's crying. 

His expression screams a silent sadness, tangled up inside with thin ropes of grief. 

Piece by piece, it gets unravelled; following every note and every stroke of his blades against the ice. 

The piano of the song, which seemed empty at the beginning, is slowly accompanied by more instruments and sounds, adding layer after layer. The skater copies this building passion, movements becoming grander, bolder, until the climax of the song is right there and Gintoki recognizes the lead up to one of the jumps he consistently misses.

His feet kick off the ground and Gintoki figures that this must be the highest he's jumped today, looking as if he's soaring as he spins through the air. It doesn't even matter that he messes up the landing again, for it seems like just another part of the story he's telling, hand meeting the ice, pushing himself back up regardless of the pain. He continues skating, twirling around in his own world, and Gintoki can't understand how it feels like he's such an outsider and yet at the same time it seems as if he's seeing too much too closely. 

The melody and the emotions seem to flow through every part of the ravenet's body, following a current that goes to the tips of his fingers. Gintoki can't even judge this correctly, but the shapes that his body makes are so elegant and yet full of restriction, painting what Gintoki would say to be the prettiest picture of a cruel sadness. 

He takes in every action that the skater makes, wanting to remember it for days after today, already invested in every singular move he makes. 

It finishes with him lowering his raised arms in front of him, gaze kept on his empty palms, and Gintoki almost feels as breathless as the skater seems to be. Gintoki almost can't believe he just watched something like that in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, within a rink that is on the periphery of it all.

Gintoki watches as the other drops onto the ice, sitting back as he pants, and from Gintoki's peripherals, he can see Shinpachi's enthusiastic clapping from behind the window. He should be clapping as well after a spectacle such as that, but it's almost like he can't do anything but stare at the moment, feeling emotionally charged and just completely dead on the physical side. 

"Hijikata always manages to make you feel that way, huh."

Gintoki nearly jumps out of his skin, turning to see Otose, somehow standing basically next to him, seemingly having appeared from the employee entrance. He doesn't even question how he didn't notice her sooner (he was preoccupied, obviously) but he does catch onto an interesting fact that makes him wonder.

"So his name is Hijikata," Gintoki finally speaks, looking back at the person who held him captive for the whole duration of a song. He's slowly getting back to his feet, pushing on his knees to steady himself.

"He's beautiful, isn't he?"

Gintoki thinks back to how he looked as he skated. When his gaze followed his outstretched arm, when his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes closed as he played out the song, when his head was tilted up to face the ceiling as he spun, a gorgeous line forming from his chin to his collarbones—

"Yeah... And not only that."

Beautiful doesn't even begin to explain it. 

"He's very popular around here," Otose says as she takes the spot next to Gintoki, "Won a few competitions with our town name in his description, and the days after that people usually come to our rink to see him practice. Today's pretty normal, however. None of the little fangirls."

Gintoki snorts.

"I think he just got himself a fanboy though," she points out, "An ugly one."

"Shut up old lady, you know that's not true."

"Which part?" she chortles. 

Gintoki just scoffs as if offended, but he doesn't offer anything else in defence, merely watching as Hijikata skates to one of the little booths lining the other side of the rink. He opens the heavy gate and basically falls inside, plopping onto the seat and leaning his head back. 

"How long has he been skating?"

"...14 years?" she offers, "Probably started when he was 8. Ask him yourself."

"I mistook him for Shinpachi earlier, don't think he wants to associate with me after having me compare him to glasses boy over there."

She lets out a loud laugh that seemingly catches Hijikata's attention, because he's looking at them in the next moment. Gintoki can't specifically tell what he's looking at, but it's in their direction. 

"Don't worry, he's a good kid. Better than you are, at least. However you’re both self- destructive.”

"You just use any opportunity to slander me, huh."

"You know it." Otose starts to stand, compulsorily wiping her behind off as she starts to leave, "Anyway, I have business to take care of. Just wanted to drop by and make sure you haven't caused a huge problem, and watch Hijikata skate a little bit." Gintoki nods in response. "Try talking to him. He's the one you'll be seeing the most at your job, other than Shinpachi or Kagura."

"Yeah, yeah."

-

He doesn't really listen to Otose—not that he doesn't want to because even _he_ is interested in talking to Hijikata, he just doesn't know how to go about with it. Hijikata always seems absorbed in his insanely long practice sessions, and Gintoki would be intruding into that time by starting up conversation or something. He starts to wonder what Hijikata does _other_ than skating, because surely he's a student or works part-time somewhere, but he spends almost all of his day at the rink. _Is that even healthy?_ Gintoki wonders (even though truthfully, he does the exact same thing).

They make awkward eye contact a handful of times over the next few days, and they have to interact when Gintoki brings out the Zamboni at specific times during his shift (if you can even call it interacting). Other than that, however, nothing. Nadda. Hijikata seems either disinterested or unbothered, and Gintoki is wondering if it's even worth it to try and befriend this person. 

It's a wonder why the first time Gintoki fully speaks to him is because of his choice of food. 

He hasn't paid attention to Hijikata when he ate his lunches or snacks on the bleachers, figuring that even he couldn't explain why he was staring if he was caught. Today is a little different. Gintoki is walking into the rink area to resurface the ice when he sees an atrocious sight. Hijikata, with the usual grace and elegance of a veteran figure skater, is spurting what seems to be an entire bottle of mayonnaise onto his sub. 

Gintoki can't stop the surprised laugh/scoff/exhale that he makes, and it's just his luck that it's audible even a few meters away. Hijikata looks up from his food, halting the disturbing noise of the bottle as he catches Gintoki's gaze. 

It shocks Gintoki for a second that he was caught marvelling Hijikata's choice of condiment, but he recovers rather quickly. "Does that even taste good? Or are you under some sort of curse." 

Hijikata furrows his eyebrows right before he quickly replies, "Of course it tastes good—it actually tastes the best like this."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not." He pauses, as if contemplating whether or not to continue talking with Gintoki, before he says, "...What, are you a ketchup guy?"

"Maybe, if it's on the sweeter side. Honestly, putting syrup into subs tastes good." 

" _Hah_?!" Hijikata exclaims, and it's such a change in his usual off-ice demeanour that it catches Gintoki off guard. Hijikata also seems to notice that his sudden outburst of surprise is odd, reigning his expressions back in. He clears his throat. "That sounds very... strange."

"No need to be polite," Gintoki chuckles, shoving his hands into his coat, "I'm not afraid of calling your mayonnaise overdose disgusting."

" _You're_ the one that's disgusting here," Hijikata answers seemingly automatically, and then it's only after a second of silence that he realizes what he's just said. "I mean—" he waves his arms, nearly chucking the sub, "That's not what I—um."

At his display of fluster over his own words, Gintoki starts laughing, finding it entirely too surreal that this was the same person that'd captivated him with his skating. Hijikata, who'd stiffened because of his mistake, soon relaxes. It's like Gintoki's laughter infects him because he lets a smile crack next, a huff of his own laughter leaving his lips. 

When it subsides, Gintoki soon introduces himself. "I'm Gintoki, by the way. Pretty new to the job. Just moved back here." 

"Oh. Right, I can tell you're new, the ice was pretty shit the first day."

"Ouch."

"I'm Hijikata."

"Yeah, I know. Now I also know that it's Hijikata, rude mayora."

"Rude? You told me not to be polite."

"I didn't mean you could hurt my feelings."

Hijikata scoffs. "Shut up."

" _Okay_ , mayora. I'll get back to making my shit ice, then."

"Go ahead," Hijikata says, lifting his sandwich again, "Even though it's shit, I need it to skate."

Gintoki stops, watching as Hijikata takes a bite of the disgraceful food. He grimaces and Hijikata flips him the finger, but when he turns around he can't stop the smile playing on his lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the cliche mayonnaise and sweets clash. I need one of those all the time.
> 
> So guess who made a Spotify playlist for this AU??? Me. I am the one. It's basically just music that I vibe to while I write this story, so you can say that it really sets the mood for this whole story. I hope you check it out because some songs are just SO VIBES MAN, like it just gets the exact feeling I'm tryna convey.
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2BZrfqqZbNqWuqxYaIKfQh?si=ZfT2C-EQQLy2fl-CmWSmYQ
> 
> Do check it out, maybe like it so that I know you exist, and thanks for reading!


End file.
